Qu : "Describe the Role of the Nurse in Caring for Others".
This assignment is looking at the role of the nurse within the community setting. We must first distinguish what the question means. When looking at the question I can pick out 3 major key words. These are Role, Nurse and Caring. The first word is role. The Chambers dictionary definition is " a part played in life, business, etc; a persons function". The definition for nurse is " a person who looks after sick or injured people, esp. in hospital" and the definition for care is " attention and thoroughness / the activity of looking after someone or some thing , or the state of being looked after". The question can now be re-written as " Describe the part played in life of the person who looks after sick or injured people, in the activity of looking after others with attention and thoroughness". This question now seems to overlap other parts of the question as shown by " the person who looks after sick or injured people" and "the activity of looking after others with atte!.
ntion and thoroughness". This seems to suggest that there is a relationship between nursing and caring. Several other authors also seem to feel this also.
Mcfarlane (1976), referred to nursing as the process of " helping, assisting, serving, caring" suggesting that nursing and caring were inseparable and at the same time indicating that some practical activities were involved in the caring process in nursing settings. Leininger (1984) thinks that " Caring is nursing and nursing is caring" which is a major indicator that these main question key words inter-combine.
The role of the nurse in caring for others has also changed over the years. The first period was Asceticism. This was a way of life based on Christian values, was build on solitude and religious devotion and many used nursing to find god. The role of the nurse was to serve man kind and care for the sick and dying.
